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01 December 2014

a nekocon report, by Sid Spencer

The author was a pretty Dandy guy…at McDonald's

Sid's back, and he went to Nekocon this year! After me talking the con up for the bulk of 2014, he decided to make the trip down for the weekend, and share in the shenanigans that only come from THIS ONE CON. Seriously, I have more Nekocon stories than any other convention. But in his experience sits the same one I had my first time down 7 years ago.

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This was my first Nekocon I’ve ever been to and just to say it quite simply, I loved everything about this convention. Having been to other cons including: AnimeNext (I feel like a vet at this convention for all the years I’ve gone), Otakon, Anime Boston, Castle Point, Katsucon, and few others smaller college cons, I must say Nekocon is now up there as one of my favorites. While this convention isn’t small, it still has one of the friendliest and relaxing atmospheres I’ve ever seen at a con. I use to believe nothing can beat the intimate feeling of Castle Point Anime Convention, at least not until I attended Neko Con and dare I say, I think this con one-upped it.

(This is what I’ve been saying about Nekocon for years, Sid. I’m glad you discovered why I love this con so much. Neko has this sense of intimacy that other cons just don’t have, regardless of size.)

The only part of this convention that was a negative point for me was the long, long line for registration. I spent 2 ½ hours on line Thursday night, after an 8 ½ hour train ride to Virginia. To be honest, that was absolutely the last thing I needed.

But in the actual convention itself...well I liked pretty much everything I saw. The artist alley was small, but it had some really cool stuff. The Dealer’s Room, although not the same as AnimeNext, Otakon, or Katsucon, was still okay. But the video game room at this convention...that was one of the best I’ve ever seen. There was a nice variety of fighting games, shooting games, music rhythm games like DDR and Project Diva, and multiplayer games like the new Legend of Zelda game for Wii-U.

My most favorite part of this convention though had to be the panels. The people running Study of Anime right here, Charles and Kit, did several panels together including a Japanese Shinto panel, Kill la Kill panel, and Charles’ Panel Rewind where he tried to do 3 panels of the audiences’ choice within an hour (talk about fast talking for that one). I also got to see part of the Making Music for Video Games panel, the Crunchyroll Industry Panel, Kit’s panel on Witch Mythology, and 2 Vocaloid panels, including a Vocaloid Producer’s Panel and Vocaloid the Global Phenomenon panel run by Aki Glancy. All the panels I saw were really entertaining and helps Neko Con stick out especially for being a smaller convention. I very much recommend going to Neko Con if you live in the east coast and are looking to go to a convention in November.

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